Fossils for Sharon`s course

I am taking Sharon Boggins on line course on Sumptious surfaces,I could not get these to upload on the f0rum site so I have put them here.My theme is ammonites as it is also my theme for the masterclass with Angie Hughes we had to take a design and play with it to come up with one suitable for stitching.

They are postcard size and the two below are " OVERLAPPING"

These two are overlapping and altered sizes.

I have not used the criniod stem and tribolite drawings, I am rather fond of tribolites they look so sweet like woodlice.

I wish it was mine

Isnt this piece beautiful the texture the colour and all that movement I bet you wish it was yours.

How about this glowing piece what an amazing use of zips

None of them mine but from the book by C.June Barnes, an amazing book which tells you how to get the texture and distortion into quilted pieces and how to dye them as a whole cloth,it is a really good book.

This photo is too show that the backing which was some embellished wool I had made has shrunk and the stitching has made it into a cone shape,I am going to try again with some half felt I have made as I want to use this idea to make an ammonite piece.Looking at the photo below I could go into making bra`s!

Having sewn for hours I now know that my machine is at the wrong height as my neck and shoulders are giving me gyp.When you are sat at the machine it should be at the same level as your hands when bent at a right angle so I sat perched on 2 cushions then I had trouble using the foot pedal,so thats my excuse. The intention was too heavily freemachine stitch over different types of fabric,silk, calico,hessian,denim,cotton manmade fibre,with a piece of wool blanket underneath so that it would shrink when washed and scrunch up the top layer,below is a detail, the wool did not shrink as much as I had hoped.But I went on to dye it flat in a tray with 2 colours this worked well but does not show up too well here.

Notebooks made by putting gesso and scrim over pelmet vilene, the design on the front is painted tyvek, it is meant to look like metal.

These two notebooks were made by pressing the fossils into gesso and scrim, the papers tied in with a cord so that they can be replaced.

These fossils were made by pressing toilet paper over real fossils and then dampening the layers, when dry paint on gesso and then paint.

Frances Pickering showed us how to colour these pages at a workshop, rip the paper up over a ruler then with 2 colour washes paint on both sides of the paper then stack them one on top of another.You then get some lovely effects helped by putting in odd small pieces of paper now and then,leave the lot to dry for 24 hours.

Gifts from my lovely daughter

My beautiful daughter in Oz has been on holiday to Vietnam and she took the time and trouble to buy me yards of silk and silk fibres so that I can dye them this mauve was my first attempt.

I am doing the online class Fibrein form with Lynda and Carol so spent most of Saturday with molding paste and scrim all on painted calico on pelmet vilene.Followed by thick threads for texture and lace and xandaprint,most stop buying items until I need them the xandaprint had gone rock hard.Luckily Shirley had very kindly sent me a load of tyvek so I burnt, stitched and played with that breaking 3 needles.

I was pleased with this one,painted tyvek on painted pelmut vilene on top of scrim on pelmut vilene, based on Lynda`s golden quilt as in Maggie Greys book.

I really liked the way this lady had offset the design on this quilt which was made with Japanese type fabrics

We saw these quilts at Winchcoombe I though these three were lovely colours

Fossils

I bought this brooch from Amanda at folksy I have only just found the site but it is worth a look
This dyed calico was stamped with bleach using a stamp made from lino and one made from polystyrene,when I put violet Dynaflow colour in with the bleach it made it too watery and it spread, the best effect was bleach and manutex to thicken it.Once it was dry I machined around it freehand and added some treasure gold and silver

Maggie Greys book arrived this Friday so this has kept me busy most of the week end, but then who really wants a clean dust free house!

Here we have pelmet vilene with tissue and handmade papers bonded to it,gesso was painted on a sprinkle of salt and the a wash of paint,some hand stitching and an ammonite made from water soluble paper I was pleased with this one but next time would set the ammonite in the gesso while it was still wet
This technique was shown to us by a fellow student, it is kumin felt with gesso dried then painted, the gesso and paint stop the felt from melting when a heat gun is applied, I did not leave enough unpainted felt in this one so not a very lacy effect

This is Kozo fibres which have been soaked in water then teased out to look like

criniods

a type of fossilized lily.It was then painted and before it was dry embossing powder was sprinkled and heated,it was then set into painted gesso. Below we have two ammonites made from modelling clay one of which was pressed into felt whilst still soft and then the edges were embellished. The last photo is of black felt bondaweb and tissuetex which has been painted it was then put under the embellisher, I did not like this at all.What else can you do with tissuetex?

Quilt swap

This is my art quilt for "another little quilt swap" organised by Kate, the background was mono printed and the feather is a screen print which I also used to decorate the binding it does have a few stitches on it

I printed some kopopelli on to my screen printed fabric, and the creature below was printed out onto handmade paper, this worked well as the paper is very absorbent.The gocco machine is a great way to make small images for printing either onto card or fabric,I got mine from Liz Plummer who is a fountain of knowledge on the Gocco, she has a great blog at http:dreaming spirals.blogspot .com

This Gocco screen the carbon from the print was too heavy and the edges are blurred and it has lots of small dots, not good.

Yet more deconstructed screen printing parts of this fabric look just like crocodile skin.Had a disaster using flour and gum arabic as a resist spent 3 hours cooking it up when it dried on the screen it was too thick and the paint could not get through to the fabric and to make matters worse the design painted onto the fabric came off when put into the dye bath, a real waste of precious time

My sister has embroidered this mermaid and the hips and blackberries as part of her stump work course she said she has not enjoyed doing the figures But I think they are both great, she has always been a better embroider than I.

Saw this cushion at Laura Ashleys it is 2 rows of tea cups it worked out fairly well, but I should have used more "chintzy" fabric for the tea cups. He who must be obeyed said " I like the urns".